Death's embrace
by MTVCCVC
Summary: A villain gained. A friend lost. A lover killed...
1. Death of a loved one

A/N: I'm trying to make this one of my best stories, so all reviews are very much welcome. Not sure how often I'll be able to update, but if i notice there's interest in it, I'll try and get it done faster. All in all, hope you enjoy it!

* * *

"How come you're coming to this battle, J'onn?" Flash asks as he follows his flying friend over various obstacles.

"Superman took over my shift. He told me I need to get some workout" the Martian replies calmly.

"So who are we taking on this time?"

"I don't know. We only found out about this location when they asked for help. It is likely a secret military research facility."

"Not even Batman knew about it?"

"I wouldn't know, Flash."

"Well, I see someone who might. Come to join the fight, Wonder Woman?" Flash greets the approaching Amazon enthusiastically as always.

"Wouldn't miss it, Flash. Who are we going to be fighting?" Diana replies.

"We don't know. We were kind of hoping you could fill us in on the details or at the very least where we are headed."

"Why would you think I would know more than you?"

"Because of that ring on your finger" Flash answers with a smile.

Diana looks at her wedding ring with a blissful smile before answering. "Batman doesn't know much about the military installation we're headed towards. He only managed to find the blueprints of the layout of the base, but couldn't find anything about the underground research facilities."

"Are you sure that's all he knows?" the Flash asks skeptically.

"Of course. I make him tell me everything. He's coming to aid us precisely because of that lack of information" Diana exclaims almost proudly and receives a significant look from her comrades.

"So, when we want to find out what he won't tell us, we turn to you, Wondy?" Flash asks, grinning satisfactory.

"Unfortunately, no. He made me promise to keep things a secret and not tell anyone" Diana explains with a slight annoyed expression. Her two teammates throw her a questioning look.

"The sneaky bastard has ways of getting what he wants" Diana replies to their unspoken question.

"We're almost there. We should see the base very soon" the Martian Man hunter warns. However, the warning didn't prepare them for the sight that awaited them as soon as they arrived.

The base is torn apart. There are destroyed vehicles and the corpses and body parts of the soldiers are lying around everywhere in pools of blood. The sight hits the Flash a lot harsher than it does Wonder Woman or the Martian Man hunter.

"Oh my God. Who or what did this?" Flash exclaims in recovering from the initial shock.

"That's what we're here to find out, Wally" Diana tries to snap him out of it and give him courage.

They wanted to look for any possible survivors, but they were very aware that there were none so they decide to go look for the culprit. The busted down several ton heavy doors that lead into what seems like an underground bunker seem like a good lead. They enter and follow a trail of destruction several levels underground.

When the blood trails ended, they found themselves in a poorly lighted room, looking at an unfamiliar figure clad in a black metallic suit with non-reflective steel gauntlets, shoulder pads, chest piece and boots standing at the doors of a vault. He is also unexpectedly youthful.

"And what do you call yourself?" Flash asks him sternly.

"Hmm?" the man reacts to their presence with unhidden surprise. "Oh, it's you. Don't you have something better to do than stand around here? You know, catch thieves or whatever you guys do with your time?" The young man's indifference to the horror surrounding him is surprising and disturbing.

"Who are you? Did you kill all these men?" Wonder Woman steps forth, demanding an explanation.

The young man looks around nonchalantly and then returned to the screen he was busy with before. "No. I killed a few dozen, but most of them fell to my servants."

"What servants?" J'onn asks, slightly confused as he senses no other life forms around them.

Suddenly from out of the darkness emerge 34 three meter high, huge and extremely armed robots and point their wrist mounted machineguns at the 3 Leaguers, with only 2 of the robots also pointing rocket propelled grenades mounted on their shoulder. Wonder Woman, Flash and J'onn assume their combat stances.

"So you have a few toys. You still haven't told us who you are or what you want" Wonder Woman states.

"Nor am I going to. I hope you enjoyed this little chat as much as I did. Dreadnoughts, kill them" the young villain orders, with a complete lack of care in his tone.

The robots open fire at the heroes who immediately split up to handle the situation. Diana starts deflecting the bullets with her vambraces, but finds it hard to get an opening to attack any robot alone and positioning herself so that one robot finds itself in the crossfire of the others meant nothing as they were bulletproof.

J'onn tries to faze through one of the robots but is repelled via an electrical shock. He decides to go for a simpler solution and attack the robot, but doesn't get a chance for a follow up hit before having to faze again to not get killed by the other robots fire.

Flash speeds around and manages to give his friends a better tactical position by dropping several robots on their backs. Wonder Woman and Martian Man hunter now had opportunities to take on the robots one at a time without getting caught in the crossfire.

As his friends start taking down the robots one by one, Flash speeds behind the villain.

"We're almost done with your toys. Time for you to give up and go to jail" Flash exclaims as he grabs the villains shoulder.

"Riiight…" the villain replies mockingly and an electric current courses over his body, shocking the speedster of his legs. The villain turns around and laughs at the knocked out hero before stretching his arm out and firing a lightning bolt at the computer console he was studying moments ago.

The door to the vault opens and he enters with 2 of his robots, while the heroes struggle with the rest. As he instructs his robots to retrieve some crates, he feels a hand grabbing his shoulder again.

"You don't learn very fast do you?" he exclaims smugly as he courses his amour with the electric current once more. This time, however, the hand doesn't let go but rather turns him around. As he spins around, his nose is met with a black fist and his chest with the sole of a black boot.

"Oh. It's you" the young villain exclaims from the floor to the dark towering figure of Batman.

As the 2 robots raise their guns at Batman, he stops them. "No. He's mine. Take what we came here for and get out." The robots fly off past Batman, but before he can throw a batarang at either of them the villain kicks him into the wall. Batman dodges the lightning bolt that follows up the hit.

"No one has yet managed to hit me. No one, but you. That makes you a worthy challenge" the villain exclaims with an odd grin on his face. "I take it that suit of yours is insulated. I can fire off lightning strikes of a million volts. I doubt your suit is resistant enough to save you from that" his gauntlets and boots start coursing with a strong current.

The villain jumps into a leaping punch, but is grabbed by the arm and flung over Batman's shoulder into a wall, though the current hurt Batman somewhat. As he falls to the ground he turns his sight back to Batman charging at him and fires off a lightning blast. Batman dodges by rolling to the left and throws a batarang at the villain's forehead.

As the young man grunts, Batman manages to run up to him and places a right punch to his jaw, a knee strike to the abdomen followed by a elbow strike to the head and after he staggers off a little, Batman lands a side kick to the kidney.

After staggering another few steps, the villain regains his stance and hits Batman with a right round kick, misses him with a left punch and gets his left leg grabbed as a result of a failed left snap kick. He finds himself flung through the vault door back into the room where Wonder Woman and the Martian Man hunter were beating down the rest of the robots. He fires a bolt at Batman again, who dodges it by jumping forward and rolling out of the vault. They both regain their stances and start trading attacks, hits and blocks.

Wonder Woman and J'onn managed to take down all of their respective robots aside from one so far. As J'onn leaps at it, the robot surprises him by firing at him with a flamethrower hidden in his left hand and smacks the stunned Martian into the wall with a powerful punch and knocks him out. As it approaches him to finish him off, it is pulled back by Wonder Woman's lasso. As it turns around and stands back up it pulls on the lasso, pulling Wonder Woman towards itself, but as it throws a punch at her she flies up and back down on it whaling on the metal head, denting it more and more. Before she is to land her 7th punch, the robot manages to swat her into a nearby pillar. As Wonder Woman regains her footing, she barely manages to raise her arms to block being hammered by the massive metal fist of the robot and is dropped to her knees.

Again finding himself being flung over Batman's shoulder, the villain now annoyed fires a lightning bolt with both hands at the Dark Knight, who manages to dodge it once more.

"So you can dodge my lightning attacks, but will she be able to?" he grins menacingly at the Batman stretching his arm in the direction of the kneeling Amazon.

"No!" Batman exclaims with a concerned expression on his face as he charges at the villain. He arrives just in time to grab his arm and redirect the lightning bolt away from the woman he loves, but is hurt by the current himself and this time he drops to his knees.

"You 'heroes' are so predictable" he exclaims and proceeds to laugh delightedly as he shocks Batman at point blank.

The agonizing cry of her husband sends chills through her entire body and fills her with a rage she hasn't felt before. She rips the robots hands away and punches the head off before flying at the villain, ramming him and sending him flying to slam into a wall.

She ignores him, not caring to check whether he was knocked out or killed with that attack. She needs to see if her lover, her husband, her Bruce is alright. No pulse, no breath.

"Oh Gods, no. This can't be" her mouth utters desperately as she starts administering CPR.

Seeing the woman powerhouse that just nearly made a stain out of him on the wall preoccupied, the villain checks his power reserves. They are nearly depleted. He can't risk trying to hurt the Amazon. He'll use this chance to get away. He stands up, runs over to the robot she recently demolished, grabs on to the wires in the throat of the wreck of the robot and uses his electric powers to give commands to fly away from there.

"Come on, Bruce! Don't do this! You never give up, don't you dare let this be the first time for that! Breathe!" the Amazon Princess starts getting more desperate the longer she keeps trying to resuscitate her love.

Getting more and more desperate, she starts whacking his chest with both hands, screaming: "Bruce, don't you dare die on me now, or I'll come down to Tartarus after you and beat you up so much, Hades himself will be proud and taking notes!"

After several whacks, his body finally reacts, but instead of breathing in air, his mouth coughs out a thick mist of blood directly in Diana's face. Shocked by that, it takes her a few seconds, but finally she collapses in tears, sobbing on his chest: "Bruce!"


	2. Sorrow

She hates it. The limpness of his body in her arms, the smell of the burnt patches of skin are sickening. Carrying his dead body to the Cave isn't helping her sorrow or rage one bit. "I will find that bastard, my love, and I will make him pay," she tells her dead husband's body as her eyes well up with tears.

* * *

J'onn and Flash stay behind in the base to search for whatever evidence they can find before the military gets there and cordons the area off. They can't believe what happened to Batman, but more than that they are worried about Diana. She didn't wipe of the blood from her face and her eyes were searing with rage. Before she flew off she gave them instructions in a voice that chilled the Flash down to the bones. They were tasked with informing the rest of the League of the situation and Diana would inform the Bat-clan.

They gather up some of the robot remains and return to the Watchtower after meeting up with the military and informing them of what happened. Upon arriving aboard the Tower they transport what evidence they managed to gather to one of the examination labs and call Steel and the Question in.

"What have got here?" Steel asks when they arrive.

"Robot parts. We need you to identify them," J'onn tells Steel and then turns towards the Question, "and you to track down where they came from."

"This is of utmost importance. Drop everything else and get to work on this," Flash exclaims uncharacteristically serious.

"If it's that important, why isn't Batman working on it?" the Question asks, characteristically suspicious.

Flash is obviously stunned by the question and J'onn replies: "You will be informed as soon as possible," and he and the Flash leave the room.

"That can't be good…" Steel mutters before he starts working on the robot parts as Question stares at the closed doors, lost in his thoughts.

* * *

The Cave looks darker than usual as she lands. Alfred is there waiting. He did not expect to see his wards dead body in the hands of his wife.

"Alfred…" Diana tries to say something but ends up swallowing the rest of her sentence with the series of sobs she felt were coming.

"Bring him over here, my dear" Alfred tells her and they make their way to the table where he used to patch up Batman's wounds. His usual stern and serious composure is broken and almost gone, a mournful gaze defining his features. The father in him wants to cry for the loss of his son, if only the old soldier's body had tears left to shed.

Diana lies Batman down on the table and takes of his cowl. Those blue eyes that were once so filled with sorrow, pain and from time to time joy, are now all glassy and empty, devoid of life. The blank gaze of his eyes drills a painful hole in her chest.

"Alfred, could you inform Nightwing, Robin and Batgirl, please?" Diana barely manages to finish of the sentence. She closes those eyes that hurt her so much, those eyes she loves so much.

"Will do, Madam" Alfred answers, placing his hand on her shoulder before leaving up the stairs. He hears Diana break down in tears before he climbs into the Mansion.


	3. Mourning and preparation

"Ready?" the Man of Steel asks and receives five nods in reply. The five founders have assembled on the teleporters, getting ready to go to the Cave. They rarely go there, almost never all together, but the black bands on their left arm are a grim reminder of why today is different. Superman activates the teleporters and the familiar light envelopes them. The Watchtower disappears from their sight and they are greeted by the shadows of the Bat Cave and the lens-hidden eyes of Nightwing, Batgirl and Robin.

The lightshow is a strange experience for the Bat-clan. Even though Batman designed it, none of them ever use the JLU teleporters themselves and only rarely witness it in action. Still, the spectacle provokes no real reaction from any of them.

Nightwing greets the five heroes only with a nod and nudge towards the medical table where Batman's body is lying, his hand in Diana's grasp. Superman and Shayera move over, while the rest stay with the Bat-clan.

"How're you holding up?" Flash asks them unenthusiastically.

"Still kind of in denial, I guess. It's hard to believe, even with the body…" Tim Drake replies.

"What did you find out?" Nightwing asks, hiding his own pain.

"So far nothing. We left the robot parts we picked up with Steel and Question 2 hours ago. We haven't told anyone yet what's going on. We'll inform them to send their findings and cooperate with you," J'onn answers.

"Did you guys find anything? Batman did have a camera function or something in his cowl, right?" Green Lantern asks.

"We haven't examined the video footage yet. Diana wouldn't leave and we didn't really want to examine it with her around. Probably should try not upsetting her with anything for a while" Batgirl, Barbara Gordon explains and they all turn their gaze towards the aforementioned Amazon.

She feels Superman's hand on her shoulder, but doesn't react to it. She feels the intent to comfort her, but it doesn't help. She holds the gloved hand clasped between her palms trying not to let her feelings overwhelm her. It doesn't work. She places her husband's dead hand on his chest and turns into her best friends embrace as tears start flowing down her cheeks. Shayera embraces her as well and they stand there as the tears keep flowing.

* * *

"Your cup, Master Dick," Alfred says as he finishes serving cups of Earl Grey to the heroes assembled in the Manor dining room.

They have all dispersed around the room. Nightwing, Batgirl and Robin are standing in one of the corners of the room, close to a window and talking about something quietly. Superman and J'onn J'onzz have entered into conversation as well. Shayera, Green Lantern and Flash are sitting at the table talking and every once in a while casting a glance at Diana. She is sitting in the first chair to the right of the head of the table, holding her cup with both hands close to her mouth, enjoying the soothing aroma steaming from the cup. It didn't help her that much though.

The initial overwhelming sorrow she felt has been drained with every tear she has shed so far. Her rage was not so lucky and it is evident in her eyes. Though they do their best to hide it, she can see that her friends and family are looking at her gaze. Her eyes are full of determination, suppressed anger and menace.

As Alfred lays the tray on the table and takes up his own cup, they all assemble around the table and take their seats. They spend a minute in silence and then without saying anything take a sip from their cups collectively in a toast to their fallen comrade.

"Alright. It's time we laid down the plan on how we proceed from here on," Nightwing addresses all of the assembled. "J'onn, you said you put Steel and Question in charge with the evidence you found at the crime scene?" They all notice the cold neutrality in his voice. It affects Diana more than the rest of them.

"We've gathered up several robot parts and they are now being analyzed and traced. As soon as we return to the Tower, we'll inform Steel and Question to share their information with you and work with you on every step. The machinery and weapons used in their construction are very sophisticated so tracking them down shouldn't be very hard. We've also recovered a memory module that hopefully hasn't been erased or at least has salvageable data on it along with the central operating unit. Hacking its programming might give us more information on who the manufactured it," J'onn answers.

"Good. Barbara, how soon can you start working on the memory module?" Nightwing turns to the young red haired woman.

"As soon as they transfer it to me," she replies without hesitation and receives a nod from him in confirmation.

"Tim, I'm going to need you to help me with tracking down any leads that might pop up."

"Sure thing," the teenager answers immediately.

The near emotionless way the Bat-clan lead the conversation is a surprise to the League. They have gotten used to such behavior from Batman when he went into his analytical mode, but seeing the same behavior in such young people is shocking, almost frightening.

"I'll need the League's case files from the last several months. Focus on the ones that weren't committed by any known super villains. This attack came as more or less of a surprise, so who ever did it was doing it as quietly as possible. Those robots and guns don't come cheap. I'll try to look for a discernable pattern," Nightwing continues. "While you gather all that up, I'll start work on Batman's video footage and try to identify the man we're looking for."

"What?" the room shakes from Diana's yell and all those assembled are stunned, though Nightwing hides his shock. "What do you mean 'start work on'? Why haven't you done that already?"

Nightwing stares at her almost neutrally for a moment before Batgirl intervenes. "Diana, you wouldn't leave the Cave and we didn't want to analyze the video while you were there. You were very upset and we didn't want to add to that."

"Upset? Upset? My husband is dead. That bastard killed Bruce. I think I have all the right to be upset! Don't you think I'd want to know who my husband's killer is?" Diana holds little of her anger back. Batgirl's scared expression doesn't calm her one bit.

"Calm down. Now!" Nightwing stands up to his adoptive mother.

"Who are you to order me what to do?" Diana replies no less harshly than before.

"You're right. I don't have the authority to give you any orders. However, I can tell you that this outburst isn't helping our situation at all and that you are wasting time that we could spend searching for the bastard who put us in this situation in the first place," Nightwing berates her and if there was ever any doubt about who would take over Batman's mantle should the need arise in anyone's mind, it is now alleviated.

Diana stands up and crosses her arms in front of her chest. She doesn't back down, but it is good enough.

"That's it for now as far as the detective work goes. This shouldn't affect any of your Justice League duties. Just try to keep this as quiet as possible. Best to keep it a secret until we find the one responsible. Superman, can you and Lois keep the press from snooping around too much? The army may be the ones covering what's happened, but just in case…" Nightwing finishes off.

"I'll do what I can. We should all stay in constant contact for the time being. Unless the assignments are something major, pass it down the line, so we're available at any moment. When we do find our culprit, we don't want to waste any time catching him. Agreed?" Superman adds. He receives a collective nod and they all go their way one by one.

Only Diana remains, looking out the window, with Alfred holding her shoulder.

"I miss him, Alfred. I miss him so much."

"As do I, Madam. As do I."


	4. The search for vengeance

"Did you find anything yet?" Nightwing gets interrupted by Diana.

"The answer is the same as the last 20 times you asked me. No and I'm going to tell you everything I find out as soon as I do, Diana. I could probably do it faster if you weren't breathing down my neck every 5 minutes" Nightwing replies obviously agitated. "Why aren't you abusing the training room?"

"I broke it" Diana answers angrily.

Nightwing throws her a disbelieving scowl over his shoulder before typing in a few commands into the computer and opening a new window on the screen. The new window starts showing camera feed from what used to be the training room. The walls and floor have been dented all over and the robots, even the ones Bruce specially designed to push Diana's limits, have been shattered and the pieces scattered all around.

"Huh… So you did…" Nightwing reacts to the images. 'Great. Now how am I supposed to get her off my back?' Before he can even finish his trail of thought, the computer beeps and highlights one of the windows.

"What happened?" Diana asks, obviously intrigued and impatient.

"I've put the best images I could get from the Cowl video footage through a search of all public records and it seems like we've got a match. Interestingly enough it's in our copy from 3 years ago. There's no record of him after that. Interesting…" Nightwing explains.

"So who is he?"

"Brendon Yaw. Apparently a talented electrotechnics, robotics and programming engineer. Not much else on him that's relevant at the moment" Nightwing answers and thinks about the information for a few moments. "Computer, open communications to JLU member Question, Superman and Robin."

"I'm listening, Dick" Robin answers instantly.

"Yes?" Question answers a few moments after.

"Nightwing, what did you find?" Superman answers the call right after.

"Guys, I've got a match on what we could pull from the video feed. The guy has disappeared from public record about 3 years ago. Question, think you can find him?"

"Please, 3 years? I'll be done in a few hours" Question answers, sounding almost insulted.

"Excellent. Robin, can you hook up with Question and help him out?"

"No problem. Just send me the Batwing and I'll be on my way" Robin replies.

Nightwing types in a series of commands into the computer and the Cave roars as the engines on the Batwing start up and it flies off.

"The Batwing is on the way to you. I'm uploading the information we've got to both of you. When you find something, call in Superman so he can help searching with his various super-senses. This guy is supposed to be talented in programming and robotics, so send me any programs of anything you find so I can compare what we've got here from the robot parts. I'll call Batgirl and see if she managed to scavenge anything from the memory banks. Call back as soon as you find anything. Understood?"

"Understood" they all replied and cut off.

"Diana, I want you to go visit Barbara. See how her job's coming along and when she's finished bring her here" Nightwing turns around and faces his adoptive parent.

"Are you trying to get rid of me, Richard?" Diana asks angrily.

"Yes. I'm not a fan of you breathing down my neck, but that doesn't change the fact that I need Barbara here when she's done and you can get her here faster than any particular means of travel she could employ" Nightwing replies to her question.

"Fine. But don't forget to keep me constantly informed of anything you find out" Diana says before making her way towards Bruce's body. She kisses his forehead before flying off through the Batwing exit tunnel.

Nightwing turns around and starts examining the robot parts instructional programming. He glances on the picture of the villain.

"You better hope you're really, really well hidden, because when we find you and gets to you…" he trails off and returns to work.

* * *

"Computer, open previous communication links plus Wonder Woman and Batgirl" Nightwing commands.

"Guys, I've studied the robots programming. All components programming share the same basic format" Nightwing informs them.

"How is that significant?" Diana asks.

"All programs that need to work together must have compatible features, but programming is a lot like leaving finger prints. All programmers have their own style of writing their programs, and even if the differences are miniscule, they are rarely exact. On programs as elaborate as these, the possibility of that is almost zero" Batgirl intervenes.

"So they were programmed by the same person. I take it that's improbable for an industrial process or mass manufacture?" Diana replies.

"Yes. Writing out the programming for a great number of parts and their interconnections one by one is far from time and resource saving" Nightwing responds.

"We've managed to gather up a few programs and a robotic arm apparently designed by this Brendon Yaw. I'm sending you some of them. We've found some other stuff but there are no connections between them. I'd say they're discarded ideas. Interestingly enough, among those are a few maps of secret decommissioned military bases" Robin informs them.

"Those would provide him with a location to develop his robots and so, but… Question, this would be you're territory, wouldn't it?" Nightwing asks.

"I've been to the two of those a few months ago and they're crumbled up ruins. Doubt he'd use any of them right now" Question replies.

"I've checked out other two and found nothing and am currently checking out the third but it doesn't look promising. Robin's probably right. These are likely discarded plans" Superman adds.

"Hmm… These programs are similar to the ones from the robots from what little I glanced over the script. Barbara, did you find anything?"

"I couldn't save much, Dick, but among most of the garbage information I've managed to scrape up several GPS coordinates. They are concentrated in a specific region, but I can't find a discernable pattern or which of those, if any is the real location of wherever this guy is hiding" Batgirl replies and notices Diana standing next to her, tightening her fist.

"Question, think you can help with that?" Nightwing asks.

"No problem" Question answers again almost insulted.

"Alright, everyone gather up what you got and get to the Cave" Nightwing orders and cuts off the communications and returns to comparing the programs Robin sent him with the programs from the robot parts.

* * *

As Diana and Batgirl land they are slightly surprised by who was awaiting them.

"Dick, why are they here? I thought only Superman, Robin and Question were supposed to come?" Diana asks, puzzled to see the rest of the Founders in the Cave.

"I've called them. After comparing the programs Robin sent me with the ones I had here, and sending them to him so he can compare the programming of the robotic arm they found to them as well, we're pretty sure that this Brendon Yaw is the one we're looking for" Nightwing explains. "Now all we need is Question's 'conspiracy' knowledge of whatever is in the area Barbara found on the memory banks and we've got our guy."

Fire lit up in Diana's eyes. Before she could ask any more questions, they hear the Batwing land, or rather get placed on its helipad by Superman.

"Run out of fuel?" Nightwing asks Robin as he emerges from the cockpit.

"No. He just flies faster and cheaper. I see you assembled the rest" Robin replies.

"Yeah. Barbara?" Nightwing directs his query to Batgirl, who had been entering the data she managed to gather into the computer.

"Just a second… There. It's done" she answers.

The computer screen opens a window with a satellite photo and map with dots pointing to the GPS coordinates she found on the memory banks she was assigned to work on.

"Question?" Nightwing looks at the faceless detective taking out his notebook.

"I'm on it…" Question says as he strolls towards the computer screen. He studies the screen for a few minutes and then flips through several pages of his notebook. After thinking about one of the pages for a few moments, he searches through the inner pockets of his coat and takes out a USB storage device. He plugs it in to the computer and runs a few commands and a new dot appears on the map Batgirl had opened on the screen.

"There it is" he points to the dot.

"There what is?" Diana beats the rest of the people in the Cave to the question.

Question types in more commands and opens up several photos of a forest-obscured building, blueprints and a text file with various information about the complex.

"That. A secret military complex from the 50s. They did quite a few different researches there, but none really bore any fruit, so the military decided to shut it down. On the outside it looks like an oversized deserted bunker, but the underground is vast. No real defenses other than stealth, but there's no guarantee that this Brendon guy didn't build any himself" Question elaborates.

"Where do you find this stuff?" Robin asks intrigued and confused at the Question's source of information.

"You'd be surprised how much the military actually throw into the garbage" Question replies with a snarky remark.

"So that's that" Superman steps up. "We know who our villain is, we know what he's capable of and we know where to find him. As far as we know he's killed tens, if not hundreds of people. Among them, one of our own." They all turned their eyes to Batman's dead body. "In Batman's honor, in the honor of all of his victims, we'll catch this villain, bring him to justice and prevent anyone else from getting killed."

"Aside from him" Diana whispers out. Superman heard it and J'onn heard her thoughts. They were surprised, but decided not to react to it. It was time to leave.

"I'll send the coordinates to the Tower and they'll teleport you there right away" Nightwing exclaims. "We'll stay here and patrol Gotham. It's been one day without Batman and that's enough for some of the criminals to get bolder than they normally are."

"OK. Good luck with that" Superman replies.

Nightwing types in the coordinates and the commands to activate the teleporter. "Should I send it?"

"Not yet" Diana says. Everyone watches her as she moves to her husband's body. She leans down and kisses his lips. She strokes her thumb over his cheek before returning to the rest of the Founders. The fire in her eyes had rekindled, stronger than before. "Now" she commands and Nightwing sends the message to the Tower. Instants afterwards they are teleported out of the Cave.

"So this is the Bat Cave, huh? It doesn't look quite as uninviting as I'd thought it would be" Question breaks the silence provoking a smirk from Nightwing.

"You got anywhere to be right now, Question?" Nightwing asks him.

"Uh-oh" Question reacts after checking his watch.

"Uh-oh? That's generally not something you want to hear, especially from a superhero" Robin remarks.

"What's the matter?" Batgirl asks Question.

"I was supposed to be at Huntress' place 5 minutes ago" Question answers, sounding nervous, if not frightened.

"Ouch" Robin reacts.

"Robin, Batgirl. Patrol, now!" Nightwing orders and Batgirl and Robin take the Batcycles and exit the Cave.

"Want me to teleport you there?" he asks Question.

"Not sure."

"Huntress gonna hold out on you for a month?" Nightwing asks, smirking at Question.

"If only. She's going to make me work harder" Question answers.

"Good luck then" Nightwing tells him and sends the signal activating the teleporter.

* * *

The 6 remaining Founders teleport to the location Nightwing sent them to. The complex they need to storm isn't hard to spot now that they knew what to look for; otherwise they could have flown over the area for days and not even suspect a thing.

As soon as they 'land', Diana exclaims menacingly, in her own version of the Batman voice: "Come on!", and starts marching intently towards the entrance. She is stopped by Superman grabbing her forearm.

She turns her head and looks at the hand holding her, then at Superman. "What is it, Kal?" she asks him furiously.

"Diana, I understand how you feel, but you need to calm yourself. We don't know what to expect, so we can't afford any mistakes" Superman tries to calm down the raging Amazon.

"Don't you tell me to calm down! That bastard killed Bruce! He killed my husband and I'm going to make him pay" the menace of her last words shocks everyone. It's a side of the Amazon Princess they have never seen. They have seen her angry before and it is frightening in its own right, but never bloodthirsty like now.

"Diana, we don't kill" Superman tries to remind her. He didn't expect her repute.

"No, Kal! You don't kill. I merely refrained from it until now!" The rage in her eyes stuns Superman and he instinctively lets go of her arm.

Diana wastes no more time and flies off towards the complex, John, Shayera and Flash following her with noticeable concern.

"Was she serious?" Superman asks.

"Very" exclaims J'onn J'onzz. "I don't think we'll be able to stop her if she gets the chance. I also sense that none of us really want to stop her from doing so."

"You might be right" Superman admits regretfully. "Let's go" he adds before the two heroes follow their friends' path.


	5. Pain inflicted

Flying through the hallways the last 15 minutes did nothing to calm the League down. All of them are getting more and more worried by the lack opposition. All of them but Diana. She's getting more and more bloodthirsty the farther in they get. Finally they arrive at a large closed metal gate.

"Lead. I can't see through it" Superman exclaims.

"So how do we get in?" Flash asks casually.

"Like this!" Diana answers, punches the doors open and marches in.

"Umm… I guess that works" Flash comments and the rest of them follow her.

"You sure took your time" they are greeted by the villain they had come here for, standing on a 15 meters high platform in front of them.

"We know who you are, Brendon" Superman directs at him.

"So you do. That is… completely inconsequential" the young man replies uninterestedly at the heroes.

"We're taking you to jail" the Flash steps up.

"Uh-huh…" Brendon replies equally as uninterested as before, activating something on his left gauntlet.

All of a sudden the heroes find themselves surrounded by tens of Brendon's Dreadnoughts. As they start engaging one another, Diana flies directly at her Bruce's murderer. That doesn't faze him at all and he tries shooting his lightning at her. She evades it easily and before he can fire off another one, she stands in front of him crushing his gauntlets and nearly his arms as well. His scream gave her a small level of satisfaction. She grabs him and lifts him up.

"You!" she yells at him and punches him so hard she almost broke his neck.

"You killed him!" she punches him again and backhands him.

"I'm going to make you pay!" the menace in her voice is reinforced by the punch that sends the villain flying into wall. It takes him a few seconds to recover and he sits up, leaning on the wall he just flew at.

He starts laughing gleefully through the pain.

"That's some deep routed anger there, Wonder Woman. The hate, too. How did I manage to bring that out of you, hmm?" he smiles snidely at the furry approaching him. "What, was old tall, dark and pointy-eared your bat-boy toy or something?"

Diana lifts him up, grabbing him by the throat, squeezing his trachea. It's a technique Batman taught her back when he was still… It's a technique she knew hurt, a lot.

She could crush his airways so easily now, but that wouldn't be satisfying at all.

No, this worm shall suffer, long and hard before she lets him die. She'll punish him so much that Hades will have his work cut out for him envisioning more painful torment once he finally receives him.

"Your eyes. The intensity of your anger, the shear hatred and the small glistens of tears in their corners. He was, wasn't he?" the villain proceeds to taunt her with his wheezes. "And here I thought you were a noble, married woman…" His taunt is interrupted with an Amazonian knee fiercely slamming into his groin.

Diana enjoys the sight of him twisting in pain in her grip before she flings him into a wall.

She walks over slowly, giving him some time to recover and steps on him, jamming the heel of her right boot just under his collar bone. The pain his face reveals lessens hers not nearly satisfyingly enough.

"Hit a nerve there, did I?" the villain taunts once more with a sickening smile. "You know, if you weren't married to that Bruce Wayne guy, I'd be certain you were Batman's widow."

He sighs in relief as Wonder Woman pulls her heel from his body. The relief was short, as Diana once more squeezes his trachea, lifts him up and slams him into the wall, holding him up against it. She places her free hand on the side of his chest and before the villain can react in confusion, her thumb breaks one of his ribs with little effort. The deep cracking noise, muffled groan and pained expression on his face satisfy the Amazon, but again not nearly enough.

"Was that really necessary?" he moans out and attempts to smile, but before he gets the chance, Diana breaks another rib and before he finishes screaming out the pain she breaks another. Not nearly contempt with the suffering she caused to the bastard who murdered her husband, she pulls him away from the wall and slams him into the wall to their right.

"Took you long enough…" Brendon says, confusing the furious Amazon. Before she realized his intents, he activated a hidden switch on the wall and 4 thunderbolts hit Wonder Woman and sent her flying back down to the ground with the rest of the Founders.

They had managed to take down the robots while Wonder Woman was punishing the villain. Her falling down hard to their level surprises them and Flash speeds over to her immediately.

"Wonder Woman, are you OK?" he asks as he helps her up.

"No!" she replies and flies back off intently towards the villain.

She doesn't get far as continuous lightning strikes start hitting all of them from the ceiling and pin them to the ground.

"How does that feel, heroes?" Brendon mocks them as he approaches the ledge of the platform, holding some kind of remote control device. However, his mockery was interrupted when Wonder Woman, Superman and Shayera start rising to their feet through the pain.

"Hmm. That's a surprising amount of determination you're showing" he exclaims and activates the device in his hand which turns the lightning generators power up. The heroes all drop to the ground once more.

He takes off his crushed gauntlets and examines his left arm. He winces and resets the broken bone in his forearm. He takes a few moments to suck up the pain and searches one of his pouches. He takes out a small syringe and injects into his neck.

"Mmmm… Can't go wrong with pain numbers" he comments and puts on new gauntlets before turning towards the heroes writhing in pain on the ground.

"Well, that was fun. I must admit I didn't quite expect you here this soon, but you really did take your time to get here since you entered the complex. I guess the Caped Rodent meant something to you to motivate this kind of a response" he starts mocking and taunting them, enjoying it quite a bit.

"Apparently he meant a bit more to one of you" he exclaims and smiles ghastly at Wonder Woman. "I figured I'd be able to play on your guilt or anger. After all, he died trying to prevent me from hurting you. I have to admit though that I didn't really expect you to be here avenging a dead lover. Still, all the better for me, seeing as there was more anger to exploit, plus rubbing it in was a lot more satisfying this way" he explains and chuckles, as he scans the remains of his robots surrounding the Founders.

"I see you really let yourselves lose on my Dreadnoughts. Now I'm going to have to give the task of finishing you off to my prototype Super Dreadnoughts here" he decides to dramatize a little and activates his remote control device once more, this time opening a hangar door and revealing three red painted robots similar to the ones they had destroyed before, only these were 4.5 meters high, larger and better armed.

"Again, it's been fun playing with you, but I've had enough of it. Goodbye" he turns around and the Super Dreadnoughts start marching towards the heroes aiming their weapons at the heroes.

All of a sudden something hits the lightning generator and all three robots in the forehead and explodes. The heroes, recovering from the lightning strikes, try to figure out what's going on. Diana thought she saw what hit and exploded the robots, but she couldn't or wouldn't believe it. A large familiar shadow flies over them.

With a loud and heavy thud, a familiar form dents the floor as it lands and the black cape falls down over its back.

"What in…? You?" the young villain turns around, not expecting to hear explosions and even less the black figure that was kneeling in front of the League.

Shocking everyone in the room, Batman stands to his feet, covered with his cape and staring frighteningly at the villain.


	6. Surprises

A/N: I apologise for taking so long to finish this. I'd fallen into some weird writers block and my work load has been fairly hectic lately. Hope this chapter at least compensates for the long wait at least a little bit.

* * *

The massive room they are in is suddenly flooded with shock, confusion and emotions. He is standing before them. He is staring down the man who _murdered_ him. He is here and not lying on that table. Disbelief courses through all of their minds. They have seen him dead, she has seen him die and yet here he is standing before them. Or is he? Has her desperate mind conjured something that simply isn't there?

He looks slightly different, somewhat bulkier. The dent in the floor under him testifies to his apparently significantly greater weight and his usually exposed mouth is hidden behind a mouth guard. He has not spoken a word yet, but still his stance, his body language is telling Diana that it is him - but she doesn't know whether to believe it or not. She doesn't want to let herself believe only to be proven wrong. She doesn't want to face that loss again.

"Who are you?" the villain asks, obviously failing to hide his confusion and aggravation at the unexpected situation. Batman doesn't react to him at all and continues to stare him down, unnerving the young man even more.

"I know you're not him. I killed him! I watched him die! Who are you?" Brendon demands to Batman's lack of answer.

"You give yourself too much credit, Brendon," Batman finally opens his mouth, much to the collective shock of the people around him. The voice was muffled, but it was Bruce's voice. "There are at best three people who would be capable of killing me, two of whom are behind me right now, but believe me, you are not the third. You don't have what it takes to kill me," Batman taunts the young villain.

"We'll see about that!" the young man replies with a thunderbolt aimed towards the dark figure. Batman's lack of attempt to avoid the attack brought a smile to his face and a frightful expression on the faces of the Founders.

Diana's eyes widen with fear and every fibre of her being wants jump in front of the Caped Crusader, to take the strike, to not let it connect with him, but she can't. Her body is completely exhausted and all her determination can do no more than lift herself up on one elbow and reach out for the Dark towering figure in front of her. She feels her heart stop for a moment when she witnesses the lightning strike Batman directly.

Her and the other present Leaguers fear is elevated and the villains smile is wiped of his face as they notice that the attack doesn't affect Batman what so ever.

"Told you... You don't have what it takes, Brendon. Give up now, while you still have a choice," Batman says in response to the failed attack.

"Fuck you!" the young villain answers with another lightning strike, with much the same result as before. He tries again and again, his anger growing with every failed attempt to kill the Dark Knight.

"Rrrarrgh!" he roars out and fires off a lightning strike with both hands in a fit of rage, focusing most of his suits power into the attack. He falls to his knees from the exertion, realizing to his astonishment and horror that all of his attacks were completely ineffectual. "This isn't over!" he yells out before running away through a hidden door. As he disappears, a concealed metal gate opens revealing a tunnel leading out of the room and twenty one Dreadnought model robots marching towards the League.

"Stay down. Recover your strength," Batman turns his head slightly towards the injured heroes lying behind him. "I'll take care of this." He throws up his cape, revealing himself to them for the first time since he entered. They finally get an explanation as to why he seems different. Batman is wearing a new armoured suit.

The suit is made of sculpted interlocking sections placed on a full-body suit. The bat insignia is modelled on the old fashioned one inside the ellipse, though this one is wider with a shadowed white background and a bat with longer wings and tail, and it is protruding slightly out of the chest. The cowl appears the same, except for the interconnected metals sheets protecting the back of the neck and shoulders and most noticeably the mouth guard. The gauntlets are definitely larger and have spikes on the elbows added and the utility belt seems larger than before.

He pulls out three batarangs in one hand and one larger one that extends into a short sword and charges the robots.

The League can do nothing more than watch him do so and recover from their injuries, no matter how much they want to join the Dark Knight. Every fibre of her being wants Diana to muster enough strength to charge after him, to fight with him, to protect him. Those feelings do not linger too long in their minds as once more they are shocked at what they are witnessing.

Batman blows up 3 robots with the batarangs he had prepared almost instantly after he charges at them. The hail of bullets from their machineguns is easily shrugged off by the armour as Batman continues charging. As he closes up to the first robot, he leaps up to its height and decapitates it, throwing an exploding batarang at the head of another robot as he spins in the air and firing his grapple at another in the opposite direction as he turns towards it. The grapple retracts violently and Batman slams feet first into the robots chest, dropping it on its back. As the robot falls, Batman rolls forward and continues his assault on the rest of the Dreadnoughts, while the tackled robots head is blown up by the explosive charge Batman had placed on its forehead as he rolled away from it.

The Founders are left amazed at what they are seeing. The doubts that their minds were suppressing rise up. They saw Batman fight and do what seemed superhuman at times, but this was on a completely new level. The ease with which he is dispatching the robots flabbergasts them all, aside from one. The glaringly obvious increase in strength aside, the way Batman moves and fights is undoubtedly the way her Bruce moves. Diana's doubts are being, contrary to her peers, whisked away. Still she doesn't know whether she wants to believe what her mind is telling her. She doesn't know if she can handle the pain if she's wrong.

The numbers of his metallic opponents noticeably thinned, Batman continues his attacks with no loss in his momentum. He noticed one of the robots aiming a rocket on its shoulder at him and throws his sword at it, the blade slicing through one of the support struts holding the rocket launcher hinged to the large shoulder and the rocket is redirected at another robot, blowing its leg off, while the black blade gets stuck in the neck of another robot. Another robot starts aiming its rocket at him, as he runs at the kneeling hulk and slices through part of its neck with the 3 blades on the underside of his gauntlets, grabbing the head and ripping it off with his hands. He throws the head at the rocket just as the Dreadnought fires it off. Taking advantage of the robots shaken up sensors, Batman charges it, climbs up on its shoulders and places an explosive charge on its head and grapples away from it.

As the others watch in awe, Superman notices that he has recovered enough for his enhanced senses to kick back in. He tries out his X-ray sight, but he can't see beyond the outer layer of Batman's armour. Disappointed, but not really surprised he tries something else, to no avail. Even with his enhanced hearing he can't hear anything from Batman, no heartbeat, no breathing. The only things he hears are very, very silent noises of some kind of small motors from various points on Batman's body. This revelation surprises him.

Only two robots left. Batman runs up to one, the one that has the blade stuck in its neck, jumps and grabs the swords handle and the momentum of his weight easily twists the blade through the robots neck. The last robot charge at him and tries to hammer him into the ground, as it ran out of bullets for its machinegun. Batman dodges easily by rolling between its legs, recovers and jumps up slashing the robots back open with his sword. He pushes himself off of the robots back and throws a batarang in the slashed open part. He falls down on his knee and covers himself with his cape to shield himself from the flames as the robots blows up.

By now, the Leaguers have recovered enough to stand up. Diana watches, equally as impressed by the spectacle as the rest of the Founders, as Batman rises to his feet and stores away his short sword and turns towards them. The time for speculations has ended. There will be no more need to want or not want to believe. The only thing that remains now is the revelation.

Batman approaches the group of heroes and stops a meter away from them. He brings up his right hand and takes off his mouth guard and attaches it to his belt, revealing a man behind it. For a moment there isn't even silence as he looks at them and they look at him.

Flash is the first one to move, his weary feet stumbling forward. "Bats? ...is that- really you?"


	7. A long walk

'I... I'm… I'm walking… But where? I can see but I can't recognize anything. My mind isn't processing things right. I'm walking, but not of my own will. I can't stop walking, I can't move my arms, I can't even turn my head and look at who I'm walking next to.'

He finds it hard to piece together his thoughts. He doesn't know where he is or how he got here. The last thing he can remember is… is... His eyes shoot open and his gaze rises up as he remembers.

"Ah, you've regained your willpower. Impressive for a regular mortal" his 'companion' exclaims with a deep, rumbling voice.

His thoughts are now a lot easier to put together. He can look around now, he can move his arms, but he can't stop walking. Instinctively, he first tries to assess his own status and is confounded by what he sees. He's clothed only in the lower part of his suit and boots but what's more surprising is that there is not one mark, not one scar on his body.

Once he manages to suppress his surprise, he turns his sight to his right. The figure next to him is astonishing but for different reasons. He's 2.8 meters high, wearing a black rain coat and carrying a scythe and from what little can be seen under his hood, his head is a skull. Who would have thought that Death would be the mirror image of the clichéd Grim Reaper? Then again, maybe there is a reason why he is a cliché.

"Care to explain anything?" Bruce asks.

"You have died" Death replies indifferently.

"I figured that out actually" Bruce replies in a similar tone.

"This is The Path."

"The Path?"

"It is what connects where you came from and where you are destined for" Death explains.

Bruce looks behind them. The path they came from keeps disappearing.

"So something like Limbo? I'm going to have to reflect on the decisions I made in my life or something?"

"Something like that…" Death exclaims and for the next several minutes they both walk in silence. As they walk on the stone pathway, buildings start to be visible in the surrounding mist. Familiar buildings.

"Do you recognize this?" Death asks.

"Gotham…" Bruce exclaims in a tone even he couldn't quite recognize.

"Yes. Gotham. Your city. Your protectorate. Your life" Death speaks again. "You've given this city everything you could. You've sacrificed yourself and more and what have you gotten in return?"

Instantly, Bruce feels searing pain all over his body. He groans, clenches his teeth, writhing in pain, but still keeps walking, or better said staggering on. When the pain is no longer so overwhelming (after all, he's had a lot of practice in adjusting to it quickly) he opens his eyes fully and realizes where all the pain is coming from. Every single injury he received during his life, every single scar has returned, only at the same time.

"Pain and scars" Death continues.

"Argh… My choice, no regrets." still reeling in pain, Bruce replies.

After several minutes that seemed to last forever the pain starts subsiding until it finally goes away. It takes him a while to regain his breath.

"What set you on this path?" Death asks him again, before he has managed to regain his full composure.

"No…" Bruce reacts desperately, realizing what he's about to see again.

Two gunshots go off. Crackles of pearls falling on the pavement. Two parents gone, a boy left alone. Two lives taken, one shattered. A nightmare relived.

At least the scene flows by, as his legs keep going, even though he could just collapse to his knees. All these experiences he sees aren't mere memories. He is reliving them entirely just like the first time they happened. The pain, physical and emotional, is almost overwhelming.

"What have you seen on this path?" Death resumes.

Suddenly, the surroundings resound with gunfire, screams, cries for help accompanied with images of people in misery.

"And what have you not seen?"

The images disperse and new ones appear. He sees himself flying away and various people whispering out: "Thank you, Batman."

"What has your path brought you? It brought you enemies…" As Death exclaims the last word, images of people start passing past them. Bane, the Ventriloquist, Clayface, the Man-Bat, Killer Croc, the Mad Hatter brandishing his mind control cards, the Scarecrow, the Penguin, Harley Quinn aiming at Bruce with her trick revolver, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy blowing him a kiss, the Riddler leaning on his cane, Two-Face flipping his coin, Ra's al Ghul and the Joker staring at him and cackling maniacally before bursting in laughter as he passes them by.

"…but also allies, sometimes both." This time Renee Montoya, Harvey Bullock, Catwoman and Jim Gordon pass by them.

"This life also brought you a family, …" Death exclaims and from the mist come out Alfred, Nightwing, Robin and Batgirl but they don't pass them by like before, instead following them, floating beside them.

"…friends…" Superman, J'onn J'onzz the Martina Man hunter, Green Lantern John Stewart, Shayera Hol and the Flash join the others.

"…and love" Death finishes and Wonder Woman, Diana appears in front of Bruce. His arm instinctively rises to place his hand on her cheek. Her skin, her warmth, everything is as he remembers. Of course it is…

Turning around, Death notices that Bruce has stopped walking.

"Surprised? I've figured out how things work here. It's all about my memories. The more I remember, the stronger I am, the more my will is restored" Bruce states at the towering dark figure.

"I am. You are one of the very few who's managed to regain full control of themselves. However, that still changes nothing. Your path is set. You will cross over" Death exclaims.

"And if I refuse to play that way?" Bruce asks defiantly.

Death points his scythe at Batman, exclaiming: "That doesn't change anything either. No one denies Death. Especially not someone as weak as you."

"I think you'll find me stronger than I look" Bruce replies as the memories of the people who care for him and he cares for stand together behind him. They all fuse in a dark shadow that spreads out into a form of a bat before encompassing Bruce entirely. Batman raises his head and throws up his cape revealing the batsuit and assumes a combat stance.

"You can let me go or try to stop me, but either way I'm going back" Batman exclaims grimly.

"Very confident statement for a mere dead human" Death replies indifferently as he swings his scythe at the Dark Knight.

Batman ducks to avoid the scythe that gets stuck in the ground. Before Death can pull it out and strike again, Batman runs up to him, grabs the shaft of the scythe and jumps over it hitting it's wielder in the head following up with a side kick to the pelvic after landing on the other side. As Death falls back, he hits Batman with the shaft of the scythe and sends him flying back several meters. As he recovers, Batman throws 3 batarangs at his opponent, who slashes them all in half with his scythe. Batman sees an opening and fires of a grapple at Death's chest, retracts it and kicks Death slamming his entire body weight into him. As Death starts flying off, Batman takes his two-sided grapple and hooks the scythe with one end and fires the other hook into the ground. As the grapple pulls, the scythe is yanked out of Death's hands and the impulse pulls him forward and he smacks face first on the ground.

As Death rises he sees Batman waiting for him in his combat stance. He assumes his own combat stance and strikes at the Bat. Batman dodges the first several strikes easily, landing a few of his own, redirecting those he couldn't evade. Death throws a right punch that Batman redirects but Death follows up with a round kick that Batman can't redirect and tries blocking, however the strike is strong enough to throw him a meter to the side and drop him on the ground sliding. Death approaches him and attempts to stomp him. Batman rolls to the side as the massive skeletal foot dents the ground where he was lying barely a moment ago. He strikes Death's knee joint. Death shows no reaction, but the cracking noise is more than enough proof that the joint is broken or at least dislocated. It doesn't stop Death from grabbing Batman and flinging him meters away. He looks down and readjusts his leg before making his way towards Batman.

Batman throws a batarang at Death's face, but he catches it with little effort. However, the batarang explodes, surprising and stunning Death for a moment, just long enough for Batman to grab Death's scythe lying just behind his back. He stands up and swings it behind Death's ankles and pulls him of his legs and on his back and finishes the fight pinning him to the ground by stabbing him through the shoulder with the scythe.

"No! Impossible! No human is strong enough to escape Death! What are you?" Death yells incredulously.

Batman rises, covered in shadows: "I am vengeance. I am the Night! I AM BATMAN!"

He runs up to the ledge and leaps into the light, spreading his cape and leaving a bat symbol in the Grim Reaper's view before awakening in the Cave. He breathes in heavily and starts coughing vigorously, coughing out blood with every third or fourth cough.


	8. Waking up

Every little breath he manages to take in-between coughs is painful. Bringing his hand to his mouth is strenuous. His entire body feels numb and unresponsive, his lungs are burning. He's never felt like this before. The only thing that feels familiar is the taste of blood in his mouth, though that isn't very comforting.

"Master Bruce?" Alfred responds to the sounds of coughing behind him. Surprised at his 'son' being apparently alive, he doesn't even notice how he crosses 10 meters of the Cave to get to him. "You're alive? But how?"

"I don't know" Bruce answers in-between coughs. "Probably magic. I hate magic…" Magic is something he can't quite understand and he doesn't like not understanding, not knowing something. "How long was I out?"

"About a day, sir. If I may ask, how did you get back 'in'?" Alfred asks while examining his ward after his coughing had calmed down.

"I fought the Grim Reaper" Bruce exclaims with a voice and face that show that even he could hardly believe what he's saying. One would think that by now in this line of business they'd get used to paranormal things. "What have I missed?"

"After your, um… demise, Mistress Diana took your body back here, while Mr. West and Mr. J'onzz remained in the military base to take care of gathering what information they could before the rest of the military entered and help out whatever way they could. The rest of the League assembled here after a while."

"How is…" his question is interrupted by another attack of rigorous coughs. One of the coughs splatters blood on his palm. He frowns at the red liquid and groans before whipping it off and spitting out the blood that remained in his mouth. "How is Diana?"

"Mistress Diana didn't take things very well, sir. I believe the sooner you can show her that you're alive, the better."

"For over a thousand year old warrior, it hit her pretty hard. Then again, maybe avenging the fallen is part of her warrior upbringing or something" they are interrupted by Nightwing walking down the stone stairs of the Cave entrance. "She may claim otherwise, but her rage is clouding her judgment. Her warrior nature and reflexes are going to keep her safe in a fight, but that anger and rage are exploitable if you poke at the right spot at the right time."

"Where is she?" Bruce asks with his classic growl in his voice, but also with an unhidden concern.

"She and the rest of the League, well, the Founders, went to catch the guy who killed you" Nightwing answers while moving towards the computer. "His name is Brendon Yaw. He's a gifted electronics and robotics engineer and from what your cowl video footage shows, a very proficient martial artist" Nightwing explains as he types on the keys and brings up various files, while Bruce and Alfred approach him. "After they all assembled here and went through the mourning acts, they had me do the detective work and find this guy. From what little information we could scrape up on him, I would profile him with obsessive compulsive disorder. He's a compulsive perfectionist, obsessed with success, unnerved at the very prospect of failure and eliminates anything that indicates he failed or might fail." Nightwing turns around to face them.

"Diana kept looking over my shoulder all the time, when she wasn't destroying training equipment. That conspiracy theory buff you got on your team was very helpful as well. We managed to pinpoint him to this place." He points to the schematics, map and pictures on the screen. "Some kind of retired secret military complex from the 50s. Not sure what he uses as a power source to keep it from being noticed due to power drain. We're not sure how long he's been there, but if the 34 robots he's had with him and didn't really care about their destruction are any indication, he's had years to work in and on it. Not sure how much these schematics are accurate anymore, nor how many and what kind of defenses he's got."

"When did they go there?" Bruce asks, now in his tactical and analytical mode.

"They teleported over about an hour ago. They're using Superman's tactical genius" Nightwing answers sarcastically.

"So a few feel-good routines, a motivational speech and head first into the fray?" Bruce replies even more sarcastically.

"Almost. John reminded them that they don't really know that much of where they are going so they need to be very careful. How much that actually sunk in, I don't know."

"How much time is it going to take me to get there?"

"If you push the Batwing to the max, you could get there in 37 minutes, but you'll be almost out of fuel. You won't be able to take off, even if you don't get shot down."

"Not a problem" Bruce exclaims as he moved towards the suit containers. He opens one and reveals a suit he never wore thus far.

"The armored suit? You haven't tested it yet. At all" Nightwing asks.

"Tonight's as good a night as any!" Bruce replies with a smirk, as he puts on the suit and makes his way towards the Batwing.

The suit is made of sculpted interlocking sections made of a very hard metal alloy connected to an inner full-body suit, the outer layer of which being a dense mesh of the same metal alloy. The mesh can resist slashes with ease and the shaped metal armour sections will stop a rifle bullet with near equal ease. The bat insignia is modeled on the old fashioned one inside the ellipse, though this one is wider with a shadowed white background and a bat with longer wings and tail, and it is protruding slightly out of the chest as it is an additional armour piece, not molded into the chest itself.

The cowl is made of the same material as the suit, with a shaped metal mask, scalp, side and back and ears, with additional interconnected metals sheets protecting the back of the neck and shoulders. The usually uncovered mouth is covered by a detachable single solid metal piece with three small slits with mesh and Plexiglas sliding covers to close any possible toxic gasses out on either side and has a small supply of air and integrated respirators. The cape is made of denser memory fibres with a thinner metallic mesh outer layer.

The gauntlets are larger and cover his entire lower arm, featuring 3 stronger and sharper blades on the underside and pointed spikes on the elbows. They also have a computer integrated in each one that sends its feed to the cowl's lenses and its keyboard and commands interfaced through small emitters in the finger tips since the shell is so rigid. The utility belt is made of the same alloy and is slightly larger than usual.

The suit has an exoskeleton underneath to augment his strength, strength his numb body is sorely lacking after a day of lying dead, and to help deal with the significant weight of the armour itself. The individual pieces are light enough for him to put them on without help, but the entire suit more than doubles his weight in total. It also creates noticeable pressure on his entire body so that the sensors can detect even the slightest of movements so as to enable the exoskeleton to react accordingly and is programmed to reduce pressure in the area that is receiving an extremely hard blow to lessen the impact.

"I'll contact the rest of the League and inform them of these developments. The Founders have been out of contact since they entered the complex" Nightwing explains.

"Understood. After that you'll take care of Gotham?" Batman asks his ward.

"Yeah. Robin and Batgirl are already on patrol. It seems the big things like your funeral tend to bring us all together" Nightwing answers with a smirk. "It's good to have you back old man."

Batman responds with a smirk as he sits down into the Batwing and closes the cockpit, starting it up. He is again overwhelmed by a series of coughs, the last of which coughing up blood once more.

"That can't be good…" Bruce groans out before attaching the mouth guard and flying off.


	9. Reunion

Flash is the first one to move, his weary feet stumbling forward. "Bats? ...is that- really you?"

"Yes, Wally. It's me."

There is another instant where the initial shock still persists - and then the Leaguers reattach their jaws and immediately close the gap between them, some - Flash, Superman, even J'onn - hugging him.

"You're alive!" Superman cried enthusiastically.

Batman just nods in affirmation, but even he can't hide a small smile at the outpouring of his friends' emotions.

"A new suit? Is that how you survived those lightning blasts?" John asks.

"Yeah. The outer layer is made of a conductive metal alloy, so it acts like a Faraday cage" Batman explains as he scans their faces. The sheer joy in the eyes of his friends is a welcome sight, but something is amiss.

Someone is missing. Someone important. His wife is standing still, apparently in shock, away from the group. It isn't hard to see the tears that track down her cheeks even as she stares at him. The other Leaguers notice and move to back away - only to hear the sounds of another group of robots marching toward them.

Shayera charges her mace, expression set. "We'll take care of this."

She and the others charge at the robots, leaving the couple alone. Batman approaches Wonder Woman carefully, stopping about 30 cm from her. "It's me, Diana."

She still doesn't move. Doesn't speak.

"Princess?"

Still she stares.

Batman places his hand on her right shoulder, preparing to say something once more. At the solidity of his touch, she flinched, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath. In the space of barely a moment she collapses on his shoulder, her arms wrapped around his neck, sobbing passionately now. Batman envelopes her in his cape, holding his wife as close to himself as he possibly could. Her tears keep wetting his cape, while his cheek enjoys the feeling of her hair. They both curse their armours for a moment, wanting to truly feel one another, with no barriers between their bodies. Even so, it felt wonderful to have the other in their hands.

She speaks, finally, voice still choked with the grief she doesn't know what to do with now. "I thought you were..."

"I was."

A stifled sob shakes her. Even with him in her arms and her in his, the concept is still too real. "When did...?"

"Not two hours ago."

"H-how?"

"I don't know. Magic, maybe."

When they finally release one another, he puts his hand on her cheek and wipes away the one remaining tear. Her blue eyes, slightly red due to the tears, are as enchanting as ever. They never fail to make him lose himself in them for as much time as he can. She wants to see his eyes as well. She doesn't want to have to imagine what he looks like behind that cowl. The smile that his mouth forms tells her he is looking into her eyes. It also confirms to her once more, that this is her Bruce. Few things are as beautiful in her eyes as that smile.

"Shall we join the fight?" Batman asks offering her his short sword, bringing them both back into the present.

"Won't you need it?" she replies, taking the black blade.

"I've got a few replacements," he answers, activating something on his gauntlets and the pointy ends of his gauntlets on his elbows extend into 55 centimeter long blades.

"Alright then, let's finish this. I want us to go home" Diana tells her husband, determination burning in her eyes. He replies by motioning her to take point.

As she flies off into the fray with her new weapon, Batman coughs a cough he's been holding in for the last 2 minutes, a cough accompanied with blood. He wipes the blood off his palm, spits out the remaining blood from his mouth, reattaches his mouth guard and charges after his wife.

* * *

A/N: So, how many of you think they should have kissed in this chapter? ;)


	10. Into the lair

"This isn't happening!" the young, incredulous voice echoes through the hallway. "I killed him. I know I killed him, he can't be alive. That can't be him!" he keeps on denying what happened as he wearily moves towards the door at the end of the trail. The suit he's wearing is completely drained of its power and the beating he received earlier has noticeably tired him out as well.

"They won't defeat me. Even with this unexpected variable, I cannot and will not lose!" Brendon voices his thoughts to himself, apparently quite shaken up by the unforeseen circumstances he found himself in. He approaches a set of consoles and monitors and turn's them on. The screens show him little to ease his concern. All but a few of them are filled with images of his Dreadnoughts being more or less swiftly taken out of commission.

"Well, well... Looks like I was right..." he mumbles as he takes a look on the monitor that isn't showing images of smashed metal, but rather the image of Batman and Wonder Woman embracing one another. As much as he doesn't want to admit or believe it, he knows that that truly is Batman.

"You've only delayed the inevitable. I will kill you..." he mumbles at the image of the Dark Knight and makes his way towards a hidden compartment in the wall behind him. He opens it and reveals a somewhat larger version of the suit he is wearing at the moment, except with the addition of a helmet. His mouth forms a menacing smile as he looks at the black and metallic gray armour. The smile turns into a grin when he turns his head and observes over his shoulder Batman coughing up blood on the monitor he was watching moments ago.

* * *

"Good God, how many of these does he have here?" Flash yells out after losing count of how many robots they have destroyed thus far.

"I see about a 100 more in front of us. Probably not the last of them he's got in store either," Superman replies after scanning the mechanical army in front of them.

"Aw, man... How are we supposed to take them all down?" the young hero exhales.

"Like this!" they hear a fiery voice yell out, not unlike a battle cry, as Wonder Woman swoops down slicing through a Dreadnought in front of them, near cutting it in half. As she stands, she kicks the two barely conjoined parts apart and into two different robots and launches into the fray, her black sword glaring at its next target. The display stuns the heroes for a few moments.

"Well, shall we?" Shayera just barely manages to say to her comrades before she charging her mace and after her Amazon friend. The rest follow suit with Superman remaining where he was with a puzzled expression.

"Something wrong?" Batman's deep baritone rumbles behind him.

"Is it just me or is she even more bloodthirsty with you being alive as opposed to when you were... dead?" Superman asks, his finger pointing instinctively at the furry tearing through the mechanical army.

"Could be. Are we going to join the fight? I'm sure there's plenty to go around" Batman replies, as he walks past his friend.

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Superman replies with a smile and flies past him and into the fight. Batman smiles behind his mask and charges at their mechanical adversaries as well.

The fight soon became noticeably one sided, but certainly not easy as the constant hail of bullets the robots were dishing out at the heroes kept them all the time juggling defence and quick attacks.

Wonder Woman and Batman's blades cut through the robots with little trouble. They keep close to one another, rarely straying more than a few meters away from the other. The rain of bullets doesn't faze them near as significantly as some of their colleagues, with Diana's vambraces and Batman's bulletproof armour.

"These blades are impressively sharp and durable. Probably as close as any human forged blade could get to one of Hephaestus' creations. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd be able to cut Superman's skin," Diana comments, as she slices various parts off of one robot.

"They should be able to. That's what they were designed to do," Batman replies, somewhat surprising his wife, while turning his own adversary into a series of thin sliced strips of metal and circuitry.

"Care to elaborate on that, dear?" Diana asks commandingly, not relenting with her assaults.

"So far we've had to fight 2 Kryptonian clones, Galatea and Doomsday. Add to that, that Superman's skin is the toughest I have extensive data on, so it only makes sense that I'd create weapons to defeat said defence," Batman answers.

"And it wouldn't have anything to do with any contingency plan of yours if Superman ever went rogue?" Diana asks her husband slyly and interrogatively.

"It's an added benefit?" he tries to sound innocent.

"Uh-huh. We're going to have to talk about this," Diana determines.

"I can't wait..." Batman replies.

"Drop the sarcasm," she retorts

"I slipped up. Sorry," he responds nearly as quickly as his blade slices through the metal neck of his latest target.

They continue their combined assault on the Dreadnoughts surrounding them.

"Sheesh, do those two ever give it a rest? Even surrounded by a mechanical army, they keep on bickering like an old married couple," Flash asks the Martian Manhunter.

"Flash, they are a married couple," J'onn replies.

"Well... Um... You know what I mean," he responds and speeds of to continue the fight.

* * *

Eventually, the League manages to demolish all of their opponents. While it was far from their hardest battle, it was still a long and tiring one, and they were starting to feel it.

"So, where do we go from here?" Flash asks after they all gather up.

"We still have to find Brendon," J'onn says, most of those assembled nodding in agreement.

"There's also the issue of this facility. We've no idea what he did or still does here. Think we should bring it down or at least shut it off?" Green Lantern asks.

"If we knew how, I'd say yes. Since we don't, we should find our young bad guy and 'persuade' him to do it for us," Shayera answers.

"Be that as it may, we don't exactly have much of a choice here," Batman addresses them all. With a hand gesture none of them saw quite clearly, he retracts his blades. "Aside from the way we came, we have only one more path to follow and that's further in. If Brendon retreated to heal up and recharge, that's also where we'll find him. I doubt that we've seen the last of his Dreadnoughts and by now he's had more than enough time to prepare an ambush for us. We're going to have to proceed more carefully from here on out. John, is your ring charged up enough?" Batman starts analysing and planning.

Diana tunes the world out as she listens to her husband behave as he always does. After all that's happened, just seeing and hearing him order them around like he usually does makes her feel indescribable. She can't explain it even to herself. All she understands as she beholds him is that she's happy. No more and no less.

"Alright, so from here on out we fight like this. John and Shayera, you two pair up. John, you provide mobile cover with your ring and Shayera, you fly in and out of that cover and smash everything you can without stopping," Batman addresses the ringed and winged warrior.

"Got it. Once you fly, I'll start blasting as many as I can to give you more room," Green Lantern turns to the woman he is paired to and they start devising their attack tactic.

"Flash and J'onn," Batman continues, "you two can evade the attacks of the robots and disrupt them far better than the rest of us so focus on that. Take into account that some of them will likely be armed with flamethrowers. Keep an eye on that and each other just in case."

"Gotcha" Wally replies.

"Superman, I take it you've noticed?" Batman turns to his friend.

"Yeah. They've got a tough hide and I can't punch through them just like that. Also they seem to be quite resilient to both my heat vision and my ice breath. Takes a lot of effort to bring them down with either of those attacks," Superman replies.

"But if you combine them..." Batman suggests.

"Super-heating and then super-cooling their metal skin ought to make them more brittle and easier to take apart," Superman confirms that he understands Batman's intention.

"Diana, you just continue doing what you've been doing so far," Batman says his final instruction.

"With pleasure," his wife responds, gripping the handle of her blade tighter.

"Good. Let's move out," he orders and they all move deeper into their young enemy's lair.

* * *

Wearing untested armour would normally make him nervous, but right now he doesn't really have a choice. This armour is fully charged, compared to the one he took off. The injuries the Amazon inflicted don't really hurt. They are little more than a numb sensation. It seems the pain killers are still working and so are the surveillance monitors, much to his glee.

"Keep coming, Justice League. I've got a little surprise waiting for you just up ahead," the young man menaces at the heroes on the monitors. His hidden face sports a grin as he watches the heroes enter a large hangar sized room. He switches off the lights and the room is flooded in echoes of gunfire and yellow streaks of tracer fire.

"Let me see what's going on," he exclaims as he inputs a few commands into the console and activates the night-vision optics. As soon as the first few images showed up, suddenly all of the monitors are and Brendon's eyes are flooded with far too bright light. The pain in his eyes was horrendous. "SON OF A BITCH!" he yells out furiously.

It takes him near a minute to open his eyes again. He squints at the still painfully bright monitors. He activates the brightness filtering on his helmet's lenses and deactivates the night-vision optics of the surveillance cameras.

"What the hell...?" he reacts to the camera feed. He sees why his eyes still hurt. Someone, most likely Batman activated several magnesium flares and illuminated the entire room. His robots' ambush doesn't appear to have done anything. The heroes are going through them with next to no opposition and apparently they are using new tactics.

Superman, the Martian Man-hunter, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl and Flash have adopted a new approach to destroying his army. Wonder Woman didn't change anything about her approach to combating his minions, unfortunately for them and Batman... Batman is nowhere to be seen.

"Where are you, you black caped son of a..." he whispers out, stopping suddenly. He stands up and turns around.

All he can see behind him are shadows and two white slits staring at him angrily.


	11. Final round

'I'm not afraid of you... I'm not afraid of you!' Brendon keeps trying to remind or delude himself as he stares at the angry glare of the white slits in the shadows, as he has for the last 35 seconds.

"What's the matter Brendon? Am I making you nervous?" Batman asks him, snapping the young villain out of his paralysis and astonishment.

Fighting the urge to shake his head, the villain addresses him with a sudden shift in his demeanour. "Nervous? Of course I'm nervous. You've just sped up your own demise. Here without any of your allies to support you, you will fall by my hand, Batman" Brendon replies with a noticeable amount of twisted joy at the very concept.

"That idea seems unlikely, Brendon. All of my opponents, most of whom are far more capable than you, have failed to do so over and over again. You've failed to do so last time, even though you had the best chance you'll ever get. You've failed to kill me when I first confronted you here, even though you had 6 clean shots and I didn't so much as move a little finger. You won't get the same opportunities this time. Surrender or fight, it doesn't matter. In either case you lose. Face it, Brendon. You've failed!" Batman taunts the young man, noticeably irritating him. Nightwing has profiled him quite accurately. Every mention of the word 'failure' made him more furious and more impetuous.

"Go to hell!" Brendon yells at him and charges at the shadows, preparing to throw a punch directly between the two white slits staring at him, mocking him, goading him.

Batman easily parries the strike and his elbow emerges from the shadows, striking Brendon's temple, following it up with a backhand punch to the other side of the armoured young villains head. The ringing of the young man's helmet reverberates through the room.

Batman adjusts his stance and throws Brendon over his shoulder and into the wall behind him. Without losing momentum, he runs two steps and spins into a back side thrusting kick, throwing his entire weigh and momentum into it and impacting the villain's abdomen just as he began sliding down the wall, kicking him through it. He exits the room through the improvised exit.

A few seconds after, Brendon arises, the debris from the wall falling off of him. He dusts himself off nonchalantly. "Didn't feel a thing" he exclaims, realizing that his suits impact reducing features are working adequately and the pain killers haven't worn off yet. "Let's see if you can say the same!" he yells as he charges the Dark Knight once more, this time not as hot-headedly as before.

* * *

"He's going to be OK, Diana," Superman tries to calm down the Amazon raging through their robotic adversaries, more so than before.

"I know he will, Kal. He always does. But I still hate this. I want to be there with him, not here destroying these and wondering what he's doing. He knows that. Of course he does. So why did he tell me, tell us to stay down here while he goes alone to confront that bastard," Diana replies quite noticeably displeased.

"I don't know, Diana, but he does. We'll simply have to trust that he knows what he's doing. He's handling a criminal, not you, so he should be fine on that account," Clark risks a joke.

Diana smiles lightly, prompting a small inner sigh of relief from Superman. "I do, Kal. By the Gods, it's hard at times, but I do. I still don't want to be far from him, however."

* * *

Batman and Brendon keep trading strikes for 5 minutes. Neither of the two appears to be backing down at all and their fight takes them through several hallways.

"I'm not feeling any of this, you know. How are you doing? Need to cough up a bit of blood, maybe?" Brendon tries to distract Batman to land a right punch.

His tactic doesn't work and Batman parries his attack, back-elbowing him twice. Brendon doesn't react to the attacks, but his opponent doesn't relent. Batman grabs him and knees him twice in the ribcage before shoving him to the side and into a wall.

Those last two attacks Brendon notices. The sensation is little more than a tickling feeling, but it's an indicator that Batman's attacks are too strong for his suit to absorb properly and that the pain killers he took are wearing off. He performs a backwards thrusting kick into Batman's chest, pushes himself off the wall and tackles Batman into the opposite wall. The wall collapses from the force of their combined mass impacting it and the two opponents crash through it into a fairly large room overlooking the area where the rest of the League are fighting and another oversized underground space on the right side.

Batman throws Brendon off him and regains his footing immediately. Before he could rise up properly, Batman hammers him into the ground with a powerful axe kick to the back of the head. Even with the pain killers that gave the young man a horrendous migraine. Still, he is able to react quickly enough to pull the Dark Knight by the ankles off his feet and falling on his back.

Batman reacts swiftly and positions his hands on his shoulders, throwing himself backwards on his feet again. Before he can regain his combat stance properly, Brendon charges in and lands a palm strike up into Batman's chin, following up with a hook punch that Batman parries and attempts a back thrusting kick. Unfortunately for him, Batman evades his kick, grabs his leg, swings him by it and throws him off.

The young villain turns back around just in time to see and feel Batman land a jumping right punch. Batman continues his assault with a left side kick to the ribs, two direct jabs to the head followed by a right side kick to the head and a half spin into a left back thrusting kick into his chin, sending him flying backwards and the face and scalp part of his helmet flying off.

As the young man lands, he notices that the sensation on his ribs is no longer just a tickling sensation. His right ribs are burning and getting worse with every passing second, his head is ringing and he has to spit out some blood from his mouth. The pain killers have near completely worn off. The fight was so intense that his adrenaline hyper accelerated blood flow burned through the drugs in a fraction of the time they would normally have lasted.

Batman approaches the young villain, now visibly in pain. In the confusion of his predicament, Brendon fires off a lightning strike at the Caped Crusader to no effect what so ever.

"Damn it!" the agonized young man curses at the dark figure, remembering that his lightning attacks are useless against his opponent.

"Give up, Brendon. You can't win this fight. You couldn't win before and you certainly won't be able to win in your condition," Batman tells him.

"Forget it! I decided to kill you and I won't stop until I do so. I won't FAIL!" the enraged villain yells as he stands up and charges at Batman once more.

He attacks Batman with a right front snap kick that his opponent easily blocks, a left side kick to the head that Batman blocks as well and a front punch aimed at Batman's head. Batman evades to the side, grasping his opponent's wrist and moving swiftly behind him. Stretching the young man's arm out and half-spinning him around, Batman strikes Brendon's right side pelvic bone with a front snap kick and his ribs with a side thrusting kick. Upon releasing his arm, Batman proceeds with a side kick to the shoulder, spinning the battered villain the rest of the way and finishing off with a side thrusting kick into his chest, sending him flying off into the wall behind.

The impact on the wall is painful. His suits impact absorbing features aren't working anymore, probably damaged from all the hits he took. Who knows what other features are damaged. His suit has reroutes and isolators to contain the power surges from frying the electronics every time he courses his lightings, but who knows how many of them are or aren't broken. He doesn't know what his robots' situation is. All he knows for sure is that the bane of his life has just kicked his ass and for all his efforts he isn't able to kill him.

Batman. His only failure in life. The only time he's failed to achieve what he wanted. Sitting there on the ground, too tired to stand up he can only look up at the shadowy figure of his nemesis.

"You've lost, Brendon. Give it up" Batman commanded.

"Bite me! DIE!" he yells as he aims his right hand at Batman and hits him with a lightning bolt. Seeing his attack have no effect, his rage wells up.

"Why?" he roars out firing another lightning bolt.

"Why? Why? WHY?" he continues his roars and lightings.

"WHY WON'T YOU DIE?" his last shout and attack are almost desperate in nature.

"Why? Why won't you die? Why can't I kill you?" those last sentences were nearly whispers, the incredulous weeps of a broken pride. He's failed. He'll have to accept it, as hard as it may be.

"It's over" Batman's voice cuts into him.

He hammers the wall he's leaning on with his fist. No, he won't accept it. He won't end in failure. He stares at Batman with a look and smile of an obsessed madman.

"You're right. It is over. You know, you are my only failure in life. Killing you was the only thing I ever didn't manage. Since this is the end, I think it is high time I fixed that. Wouldn't you agree, Mister Wayne?" he bursts into a laugh and activates something on his chest piece.

He leaves Batman no time to be surprised at the revelation of his identity. His ears ring with a rising high pitched whistle for a second and he barely manages to cover himself with his cape before the whole room explodes.

The sound of the explosion stuns the other Leaguers and their eyes incredulously turn to the enormous fireball. Their thoughts are gone, none of them can think for a moment. Only Wonder Woman, Princes of the Amazons, Diana Wayne manages recognize some of her thoughts. 'No. Not again. Please, not again!'


	12. Final confrontation

"Bruce! Where are you? Answer me! Please!" Diana yells desperately as she equally desperately and frantically sifts through the rubble of the blown up room.

The rest of the League enter the room soon after, as she flew off with a speed even Flash doubted he could follow. They all search the room, not sure what they are looking for, Batman or what's left of him. Superman scans the room with his various visions.

"Diana, stop," he suddenly exclaims.

"What? Why?" the distressed Amazon reacts to his demand with shock and surprise.

"I can't see him anywhere, Diana. He isn't here," he tries explaining.

"What do you mean by that?" she asks, no less distressed then before.

"I can see Brendon... Or what's left of him anyway. But I can't find any traces what so ever of Bruce," Superman replies noticeably disturbed by the images only he was able to see.

"So you're telling me he's somewhere else? Find him, Clark! He's still alive, I'm sure of it and he needs our help!"

* * *

He wakes up in terrible pain all over his body. It takes him a while to notice that he isn't where he was... an unknown period of time ago. The two things he notices right away though are the blood in his mouth and that he can't breathe properly. The suit has saved him from the explosion, but it was apparently damaged. It's compressing his chest, not allowing him to take anything more than a shallow breath of air. Considering that he doesn't know just how injured he is, he'll need all the oxygen he can get, and if the non-passing dizziness is any indication, he's already short on it.

Attempting to move his arms is useless. The sheer weight of the armour and the broken pressure system squeezing him is too much for his stressed and tired out body to move, but at least he knows that he can move them. At least the computer seems to work somewhat, though it also seems to be on its last stand.

"Diagnostic... scan... initiate..." He manages to wheeze out, barely.

Numbers and letters pass through his sight and it is obvious to him that there is little he can do to fix his current condition. One string of information wakens him up immediately. The mouth guard's air filters are malfunctioning. If he doesn't take it off soon, he'll suffocate on the carbon dioxide he exhales himself.

Gathering up all the strength he can muster he manages to lift his right arm up slightly and brings it to the mouth guard. He manages to take it off and it and his arm collapse to the side of him. What little air he can breathe in now won't kill him, or at least shouldn't.

Trying to orient himself, he sees nothing but grey walls only dimly illuminated by an orange glare. Probably the blaze left behind from the explosion. At least he didn't fly that far. Hopefully, it won't take the League too long to get to him.

Continuing to scan his surrounding, he notices something odd on one of the walls. An odd black wispy figure seems to be emerging from one of the walls. A figure he recognises as soon as it emerges completely, firmly crutching its scythe.

The ethereal dark figure approaches him slowly, soundlessly. It approaches him and hovers next to him, with no more noise than before, only staring at him, through him, with its blood red gaze.

"How's... that shoulder?" Batman whispers defiantly at the spectre, provoking no reaction from the grim image. It continues to stare at him for a period that seems indefinable.

Eventually it moves. It raises its scythe and holds it over Batman's tortured chest, hanging it over him for more moments akin to eternities, and then suddenly it slams the shaft of the ethereal weapon through his heart.

The pain that racks his chest is near beyond comparison. His entire body react, but he can only raise his head, the rest of his body being pinned to the ground through the massive weight of his armour. Regaining his breathe, Bruce stares at the Grim Reaper defiantly. Several moments afterwards, the pain subsides completely.

As time passes though, Death's spectre in his eyes appears less and less ethereal and the pain in his heart starts welling up again. The Dark figure breathes out a chilling breathe and starts twisting its instrument right and left.

The pain that fills Batman's chest is unbearable and the emotionless glare and silence of his tormentor chill the air itself with horror.


	13. The end of the trail

The vindictive shade shows no restraint in racking Batman's chest with pain. Suddenly, its gaze turns from its victim to somewhere over its shoulder behind it. With no warning, Death rips its scythe out of Batman's chest, pulling him up a little off the floor in the process and making him feel like his heart is being ripped out as well. Returning its frigid gaze upon Batman, Death hovers upwards and remains 10 meters above to observe what will happen.

"I see him! He's over there!" Batman hears Superman's voice. Moments later, blue eyes are hovering over him, starring at him with limitless concern.

"Bruce! Talk to me!" Diana yells desperately, though in his ears her screams sound like whispers in a storm.

"D... Dia... Di-Diana..." Batman wheezes out barely. The rest of the League finally manage to catch up to the aforementioned Amazon.

"What is it?" she replies and lowers down to hear what could barely be called whispers.

"Get... this... off of... me," he arduously answers her plea.

"What? Get what off?" she asks desperately.

Batman raises his right hand with noticeable effort and pain and places it on his chest.

"This..." he answers her question, pounding his fist on his chest a couple of times.

Diana immediately starts looking for something, anything to accomplish that task. Unable to find what she was looking for, with growing desperation she asks her husband: "How?"

"Improvise!" Batman yells out, now quite desperate as well in light of his increasingly blurry vision and dark edges of his eyesight.

It took her but a moment to focus and decide on her course of action. With the tips of her fingers, she penetrates the armour on his chest, right through the middle of the Insignia, and even with all her strength it takes her quite a considerable amount of effort to rip it open, but she does manage to do so, sending two large pieces of the chest armour flying in different directions.

Finally able to breathe, Batman takes in a deep breath, raising his body up from the ground and then collapsing back on it, trying to regain a normal rhythm of breathing.

For nearly a minute the enormous room was silent but for his breathing and the occasional rumble of crumbling rubble in the distance. He eventually recovers a steady breath and raises himself with his arms agonizingly into a sitting position. The moment his wife ripped the chest armour off, the pressure system collapsed, but the armour is still extremely heavy and he is hurt all over. His assembled friends and his terrified wife are watching him carefully, near holding their breath.

"Thanks, Princess..." he finally speaks looking into her glistening blue eyes.

They finally let out a sigh of great relief. Diana jumps into her husband's chest, wrapping her arms around it, dropping Batman on his back.

The rest of the League wanted to melt at the display of warmth and affection, but they couldn't help not wincing at Batman's pained facial expressions.

"Di-Diana... Let go..." Batman attempts to whisper out while tapping Wonder Woman's shoulder.

"What? Why?" she reacts, surprised and puzzled by his request, as she releases him and sits up. Her puzzlement is dispersed when Batman instinctively hugs his ribs in pain.

"You're hurt!" she answers her own questions, earning herself a cynical stare from her husband.

"Really? What tipped you off?" he grunts sarcastically through the pain.

"Where does it hurt?" she reacts, ignoring the sarcasm.

"Take a guess. I promise you, you can't guess wrong... Help me up, please," he replies, offering her his hand.

She stands up and pulls him up to his feet, with a few pained grunts from the Batman along the way.

Finally up, he starts taking off the burden from his shoulders. First the gauntlets drop to the ground with a resounding clang of 10 kg of metal and electronics each, then the cape followed by the back neck and shoulder protection. Finally he gets to take off the torturous upper torso part of the armour, or at least what's left of it, revealing that he was wearing his regular suit underneath the armour minus the gauntlets. After letting out a huge sigh of relief, at least for him, he lastly reaches for the back of his cowl and removes it, revealing his face to those assembled.

He turns to them and gives them a slight smile, receiving full smiles back from all of them. However, just as he opens his mouth to address them, he is suddenly racked by a series of overwhelming coughs. Being as sore as he is, every cough is torture on his abdominal muscles and only his wife's quick reaction keeps him from falling to the ground. They all group closer around the no longer caped Crusader.

The last cough forces him to spit out blood, shocking all those around him.

"Damn it..." he grunts at the revelation.

"Bruce, what's going on?" Diana asks, concerned about the new information.

"Nothing," Bruce grunts out in reply.

"Nothing? Bats, you're coughing up blood. That tends to be very high on most 'Reasons to see the doctor' lists," Wally responds.

"Wally is right, Batman. This could be a sign of any number of serious internal..." J'onn tries supplementing.

"It's nothing. I can breathe normally so I don't think I have a collapsed lung. It could be either a small tear of the lung tissue or of a pulmonary artery or vein," Bruce explains as he finally stands back up, whipping the blood from his hand.

"How can you be so sure?" Shayera asks, suspicious of the apparently far too quick diagnosis.

"Because it's been happening on regularly increasing intervals since I 'woke up'," he answers the question.

"What?" the room suddenly echoed with the voice of a not very pleased Amazon. "You better have a damn good reason for not telling us, Bruce!"

"It would have distracted you and you would have kept interfering with everything I did. Obviously, that isn't something I want while there's still fighting to be done," he admits.

"He has a good point there," Green Lantern comments, receiving a bat-glare from Wonder Woman.

"How did that happen?" Superman asks, trying to defuse the tension.

"I can only guess, but it could only have happened during or right after my first confrontation with Brendon. It could be significant chest trauma but he never got close enough for that or it could've happened when he zapped me."

"Want me to take a look?" Clark offers.

"I would, if you could see through my suit," Bruce declines the offer, reminding him that his suit has lead lining. Before anyone can ask anything else, Bruce enters his analytical mode. "What's our situation? Did you take down the Dreadnoughts?"

"Yes. We've destroyed all the robots that attacked us," J'onn J'onzz answers.

"Is there anything left of Brendon?"

"Not very much," Superman replies, still visibly disturbed at what he saw.

"Alright. We'll monitor this facility for the next several months. I'll come back to investigate it properly once I've recovered..." Bruce is interrupted by Diana clearing her throat and giving him an angry glare. "Or we could task Question with it. You guys go and make sure we've got a clear exit. Diana, I'll need you to help me and carry the pieces of the armour I took off."

"Alright, see you at the exit," Superman replies and they make their way towards the entrance of the complex.

Bruce and Diana collect all the pieces of his armour scattered around and throw them on a heap on the cape.

"You broke my bat," Bruce comments, looking at the broken insignia.

"You said I should improvise," Diana answers with a smirk.

"So I did," he replies, casting a slight smile at his wife.

He motions for her to hug him once more. "This time, just try to be a bit more sensitive, OK?"

They hug once more, less tightly and yet somehow more closely than before. Even so, Bruce couldn't help not gritting his teeth and wincing. Still, it felt good to have her in his arms, have her rest her head on his shoulder, particularly without the gloves and the cape. He always loves the feel of her hair as his hand glides over it.

"You've no idea how much I've missed you, Bruce," she whispers to him.

"I know. I've missed you indescribably much as well, Diana," he replies with his own whispers.

What follows is something they hadn't done since this whole ordeal began. Something so simple, yet so important. Something that their triumph finally gives them time for.

Diana places her palm on Bruce's cheek and turns him towards herself. There was no need to search for intentions. They both knew what they wanted, what each other wanted. As they pull one another into a tighter embrace, their lips lock into a kiss filled with so much longing, so much love that they can do nothing but be lost in it, completely ignoring the pain, completely ignoring anything but each other. For the next minute, for them the world was nonexistent. There was only him and her, the embrace and the kiss.

Death watches the two lovers' display of affection, still hovering where he was before.

"Once more you have escaped my grasp, Batman. It seems your time is yet to come. I will be waiting with curiosity to see when that time shall be," he speaks before vanishing.

It wasn't their most passionate kiss, or their longest, but that didn't make it any less wonderful or fulfilling. When they finally release each other's lips, they rest their forehead on one another's, smiling satisfyingly.

"Let's go home."


	14. Epilogue

"Sir, Madam, your guests have arrived," Alfred says, knocking on the door of the master bedroom.

"Thank you, Alfred," Diana tells the polite gentleman. "Oh, and Alfred... When are you going to start calling me 'Diana'?"

"I'm trying, Madam. I should make some progress in a year or two," Alfred answers as he goes back downstairs.

"I love that man. Ready to entertain our guests, Bruce?" she asks her husband while smoothing out some of the wrinkles on the dress she's wearing.

"No," he responds rather harshly. "Why are we doing this?"

"Because we rarely all get together, because we've all finally somehow managed to get some free time and most importantly, because I said so," Diana answers his query in a commanding manner and yet still with a dazzling smile, doing the same with his suit as she did with her own outfit. "Still a bit sore, darling?" she asks, noticing his winces.

"More than a bit. Unlike you, I don't heal in an instant, Princess," he replies dryly to her teasing.

"Exactly and neither are you going to if I see you so much as thinking about any Bat-business, darling. Did I make myself clear?" she reminds him of the same thing she's been reminding him the last 5 days.

"Dictator..." he mumbles under his breath as they make their way out of the room.

* * *

At least going down the stairs is no longer as painful as it was a day ago, but that's not what's on Bruce's mind at the moment. He's been having trouble focusing lately. Being in need of being taken care of has left him in somewhat of a predicament. Diana ended up treating him most of the time and so they spent pretty much all her time with him. As a result, he ended up watching her do a lot of leaning and bending, which didn't exactly help his condition that much. After several days of that, he finds that his eyes tend instinctively lock on to the ever so lovely curves of his wife's beautiful body, whenever they enter his sight picture, for instance, right now as she descends the stairs in front of him.

"I don't think your eyes have given me so much attention in quite some time, Bruce," she teases him, both with her words and the enticing manner she whispers them.

"I'm sorry, my dear, but in my defence, I can usually do more than just look," he replies as they reach the dining room doors.

"I didn't say that I mind," she responds with a smile as she opens the doors.

As soon as they enter they are greeted by the sight of their friends, all in formal attire.

"Wondy, you look more stunning than I thought imaginable. Bats, you look... better than you did 5 days ago," Wally West starts off the conversation.

"Thank you, Wally," Diana answers with a smile as she and her husband approach the assembled Founders.

"So, Bruce, how've you been?" Clark asks the man he considers his best friend.

"Battered and bruised," he replies shortly in his baritone voice.

"Yeah, we kind of knew that part already. You healing up good?" John Stewart asks.

"Of course he is. He's been under my care and supervision," Diana states, rather proudly.

"Yours, Diana? Is Alfred sick or something?" Clark's tongue reacts to the statement before his brain, earning him a scowl.

"What's that supposed to mean, Kal?" she asks sharply.

"Where is Alfred, anyway?" Shayera steps in quickly to defuse the tension.

"He's rummaging through the cellar to find something appropriate for us," Diana answers, her expression relaxing into a small smile again.

"So why are we here? I mean, why are we having this 'party'?" J'onn asks honestly.

"You know that inadequate explanation: 'because we can'? Well, in our case it actually applies. After all, normally we are all far too busy for something like this, so when Diana and Alfred found out that we all had some free time on our hands, this little get-together was a certainty," Bruce explains.

"I see," J'onn replies.

"So, Bats! Did you make a memorial to that armoured suit yet?" Wally jumps in.

"No. It could prove useful in the future. I'm going to repair it, fix the issues I've noticed and improve some other features..." Bruce answers the young man's question.

"...Once you've recovered!" Diana interrupts him, reminding him of what she told him before.

"See, I told you they'd start before we got here," they hear Tim Drake behind him, returning from patrol with Dick and Barbara.

"They just gave us the opportunity to be fashionably late," Barbara jokes.

"You're giving them too much credit, Babs," Dick whispers into her ear.

"I heard that," Bruce points a remark at him.

"Well, at least we know that not even being blown up can change you one bit," Dick responds to the remark.

"Ah, so I see you've all gathered," Alfred comments as he enters the room carrying a bottle of red wine. "Will this do, Sir?" he asks, presenting the bottle to the master of the manor.

"Yes, it certainly will, Alfred."

"Need any help there?" Wally asks the English gentleman.

"No, thank you, Master West. I can manage, but if you could all take your glasses, please," Alfred says and before he could even inhale his next breath, Flash had handed everyone their glasses from the main table.

"Master Dick, if you could hold this for me," Alfred says as he hands his glass to Richard Grayson.

"Certainly, Alfred," he replies, taking the glass as Alfred starts pouring the red liquid into everybody's glass.

"No champagne?" Clark asks with a smile.

"It's overrated. Ice-wine on the other hand isn't. Trust me on that," Bruce replies.

"Oh my God, did we just hear Batman say the T word?" Tim Drake teases.

"Maybe you don't take being blown up as good as we thought, old man" Dick joins him.

"Don't push it, boys. I am going to heal up eventually," Bruce replies to their teasing with a smirk, just as Alfred finishes filling the wine glasses.

"So we gonna toast to something or can I start drinking?" Shayera asks.

"We probably should. How's this?" Clark replies as he raises his glass. "Here's to all the times we've been through hell and back... Some of us more literally than others."

"Good one, Clark. Except I never got that far," Bruce responds with a slighter smirk than before.

"Close enough. Cheers!" Dick steps in so they can all toast. They all do and drink, savouring the taste of the sweet wine that filled their glasses just moments before.

* * *

Somehow during all of the happenings, Bruce has separated himself from the other heroes. He observes them all interacting with one another. His family and friends, the two things he never expected he'd ever have until they happened to him. All of that brings a slight smile to his face.

"More wine, sir?" he hears Alfred's polite question.

"Please," he accepts, offering his glass.

"I don't believe I've seen you like this very often, Sir," the English gentleman comments.

"Well, this is probably one of my worst on duty injuries."

"Without a doubt, but I wasn't talking about that, Master Bruce. You seem kind of satisfied, not troubled as you usually do. Dare I say it, even happy," Alfred asks, teasing his ward as he usually does.

"Hmm... I guess you could say I got a different outlook on life. Don't get used to it, tough," Bruce answers.

"I won't, Sir. I've known you long enough now. I recon you'll go back to your regular cranky self in about 11 days," the old butler lands a snarky comment on his ward.

Bruce notices something flapping in the lower right corner of the terrace doors. His smile fades into his usual angry neutral expression. Taking his glass with him he makes his way towards the doors, inconspicuous to anyone but Alfred.

* * *

"Still hanging around?" Bruce asks as he exits onto the terrace, holding his wine in his right hand and placing his left one in his pocket.

"I am," Death replies from his corner right next to the terrace doors.

"Any particular reason why you're still around?" Bruce asks, not turning around to face his collocutor.

"You are an intriguing specimen. Not many have escaped my grasp and only one other than you has done so twice. Your unfaltering determination, your sheer strength of will and your unstoppable instinct and ability to survive and live are very impressive and quite curious to me. I've rarely met a mortal such as you. You will make for a most interesting observation," the Grim Reaper explains his motives.

"Think you'll have the time for that little scientific observation of yours? I was kind of under the impression that you were very busy, guiding souls and all that," Bruce keeps on searching for answers, as he observes the first blue glimmers of the dawn sky appear on the horizon.

"Unlike you humans, I do not exist in just a single place at any one time," the dark figure replies.

"Handy," Bruce replies, appearing unimpressed and uninterested at what he is told. "So what exactly are you so keen on observing?"

"I am curious to see what kind of life you will lead from here on out. It will be interesting to see what life throws at you, whether you embrace it or not, how you handle the hurdles that come your way, whether those assembled in this room will remain the only people you allow to get close to you," Death motions towards the room behind him. "I am no less curious as to how long it will be before we meet again."

"Don't take this personally, but I hope that doesn't happen anytime soon," Bruce replies, not hiding that he didn't really mean the first part of his sentence.

"Take this personally, human, I hope the same," Death responds as he starts vanishing. "You will not be seeing me again until that day comes."

Bruce doesn't react to any of that, merely taking another sip from his glass, watching more and more of the sky turn blue as the dawn rolls in.

Suddenly he hears the handle on the door behind him turn.

* * *

"Grabbing some fresh air, Mr. Wayne?" Diana asks with a teasing smile as she opens the balcony doors.

"Something like that, Mrs. Wayne," he answers her question with much the same expression.

"How are you feeling?" she continues, taking a sip of her wine.

"Hurt," Bruce answers laconically.

"Want me to kiss it and make it better?" Diana keeps on with the teasing, with a slightly more devilish smile on her face, soliciting a slight chuckle from her husband.

"I'd rather you just kissed me, my dear," he replies with a smirk.

She comes closer to him and leans on the terrace and on him, his arm hugging her from behind. They share a quick, yet no less loving kiss as the Sun's rays cross the horizon.

"I love you, Bruce," Diana tells her husband, losing the teasing smile and tone and getting serious for a moment.

"I love you too, Diana," he answers with the same seriousness. For a moment, all they do is look into the affection in each others' eyes. Diana is the first to break the locked gaze, putting on a dazzling, yet slightly fiendish smile.

"You know, all of this kind of gave me a new perspective on the whole mortality thing," she tells him.

"Is that so? Something on your mind, Princess?" he answers, wondering what she means by that and taking a sip from his glass.

"Oh, nothing much. I'm just wondering. Tell me, Bruce, how do you feel about having children?" Diana asks nonchalantly provoking and unexpected reaction from her husband.

Bruce sprays his last sip of wine from his mouth in shock and surprise.

* * *

A/N: And that, as they say, is that.


End file.
